Jade and Nic kept apace, their hands tightly clasped. Their footsteps rang out across the forest floor, crunching in the dried dead leaves. Jade’s heart slammed against her ribs not because of her pace, but because of excitement.
Except instead of falling on his ass, he disappeared.
"What the hell?" Karl gasped, running behind he'd almost caught up with them. He’d seen it, too.
"Come on!" Jade picked up speed. Karl ran behind them.
She’d finally prove to these two men that the woods were more than they appeared. They’d suspend the development project. Life would return to normal.
Jade couldn’t ask for more.
They skidded to a stop where Autolycus had disappeared. There, skillfully hidden up against a tree trunk, was a dark hole big enough to fit an average-sized man.
Jade couldn’t see the bottom.
"Is this some kind of trick?" Karl demanded. He let go of Jade’s hand. "Did you hire an actor to do this? Are you filming a reality show? I refuse to sign your waivers."
After letting go of Nic's hand, Jade dropped to her knees beside the hole, rolling her eyes to herself. Now that she had the evidence she needed, she didn’t care that Karl was an ass. And, he was less of an asshole and more of an uptight, sex-starved, workaholic pain in the neck.
"Stop being an ass," Nic said abruptly. He was definitely on Jade's wavelength.
"Yep. Un-wedge your panties from your ass," Jade retorted. "There’s no reality TV show—this is all real life." Jade stuck her hand into the hole. The sides were made of dirt. She couldn’t find the bottom any more than she could see it. The hole was sloped at a sharp angle, almost like a slide. "And this right here?" Jade gestured at the hole. "This is all the proof you need that I’m telling the truth. So, what’s it gonna be? Are you brave enough to go down the helter-skelter with me and see what’s on the other side, or are you going to run back to Beaumont Inn with your tail between your legs because some barely legal kid proved you wrong?"
"You’re going down there?" Karl asked, aghast.
Jade grinned. "Naturally."
"You can’t go down there." Nic looked concerned.
"Why not?"
"Because…"
A look of panic crossed both of the men's faces.
Karl choked. "Because you have no idea what’s down there. What if it’s dangerous?"
"I guess you’ll need to come with me, then, if you don’t think I can be trusted on my own." Jade winked at him. She shoved her feet into the hole, hands braced on either side. "I’ll see you on the other side, Mr. Bodyguards."
Then, without waiting for a reply, Jade pushed with her palms and launched herself down the slope.
Chapter Seven
Jade’s butt hit the tiled floor hard, and she winced. For a second, she sat dazed before realizing that she’d better get out of the way.
As much as she wanted Karl or Nic on top of her, she didn’t want it here or like this. Plus, she couldn’t risk getting injured so far from home.
She rolled over on the floor a short distance, clear of the landing spot, and stared at the ceiling, which had to be more than thirty feet high. Fortunately, she hadn’t fallen from there. The end of the slope terminated in the wall a few inches above the ground, but just high enough to make it an unpleasant landing. It had been jarring and completely different to hurtling down a playground slide.
Jade had gotten out of the way in time for Nic to tumble out of the hole and land on his ass, too.
He looked too dazed to move. Jade reached out and nudged him. "If you don't want Karl on top of you," she said, and then added, "literally."
Nic rolled out of the way just in time before Karl came crashing down between them.
For a while, they all sat looking around in wonderment at the room in which they’d landed.
Jade understood; she’d at least had experience of other dimensions, which didn't make it any less surreal.
The room existed on a massive scale. Huge windows were well above Jade’s reach. Hundreds of great, thick marble columns seemed to hold up the ceiling, which was so far above them. It all seemed a little overwhelming.
"What the ever-loving hell is going on?" Karl turned his head, looking around in wonder.
Jade lifted her head to check out Karl. "We crossed through into other dimensions through a rift in reality."
"I swear to god, I’m not signing any of your reality show waivers."
"Good, because I don’t have any." Jade lowered her head again.
There were scattered furnishings in the room. Some were small enough they looked like dollhouse furniture—tiny chairs and minuscule tables arranged in little clusters. Most towered over Jade’s head. Like the room, the furniture was on a massive scale and left her feeling ant-sized in comparison.
She’d never been there before, and she had not a clue where they were. It could be a land of giants, or Olympus. She simply had no idea. And that uncertainty left her uneasy. It may be a place of danger.
"Did you get hurt in the fall?" Jade asked as an afterthought. The helter-skelter had shot them out the other side pretty damn fast.
"No. Did you?" Karl asked.
She shook her head.
"I landed on my ass, so my tailbone feels like it wants to fall off, but otherwise I’m good." Nic chipped.
"So, do you two believe me now?"
"No," Karl replied.
"Never doubted you," Nic said at exactly the same time.
"You’re so stubborn." Jade narrowed her eyes and shot Karl a frustrated glare. "I take you into another dimension, and even now you don’t want to acknowledge I’m right and you’re a little-bit-one-hundred-percent wrong?"
Karl scowled. "You set this up. I don’t know how or why."
"How could she, Karl? You're making no sense." Nic stood up slowly.
"I don’t know what I have to do to convince you." Jade stood. She brushed her ass off, wincing a little. Damn, she hurt. "All right, all right, fine. I guess we’re going to have to go through one of these doors."
"Shit, you’re crazy. And who is the giant furniture for?" Karl snapped.
"Giants, perhaps? I don’t exactly know, but I do know the gods of Olympus can change their size and their physical form easier than we change our hairstyles. I suppose they have big chairs for when they are feeling big."
"Gods of Olympus? Are you crazy?"
"We’re all crazy, even if it’s just a little bit." Jade set her hand on the door handle of a normal-sized door. Not only were they not invited to this realm, they were clearly trespassing in someone’s house. With no sign of Autolycus, but in the knowledge that he passed this way, Jade had a strong feeling that they should get out of there.
Karl stared at her but didn't comment.
Nic had already set off looking about the room at the architecture and the furniture as if he were considering buying it.
Jade twisted the doorknob. The knob turned, but the door refused to open. Jade jiggled it a little, then frowned and stepped back. She investigated the frame. It looked like the door was real, but no matter how she turned or jiggled the knob, it wouldn’t open.
Jade moved on to the next door and received identical results. The next was the same. Three doors in a row and none of them opened.
"What are you doing?" Karl asked as Jade tried the first one again.
"I’m trying to open one of these so we can go through," Jade said through gritted teeth. She planted a foot against the wall and pulled at the door with all her might. The door wouldn’t budge. With an exhausted gasp, she let go. "When I’ve been here with Lauren, everywhere we went the doors opened. All of them. I don’t get why they’re locking us in."
"You've been here before?" Nic asked.
"Well, no. Not exactly here, I mean into other dimensions, Sparta, Olympus. I honestly don't recognize this place at all."
"Perhaps your production company couldn’t afford to install legitimate doors." Karl finally picked himself up from
the floor and joined Jade by the wall. He tested the handle to one of the three doors but was unable to open it. "They feel real enough. You wasted no expense in making this a legitimate experience. I’m impressed."
Nic turned his back on them. She thought he believed her, but she couldn't see his reaction.
"Can you cut it out with the reality TV show crap?" Jade tried another door, this one much smaller. "This isn’t TV, I swear."
"No, maybe not. Maybe this is where your strange friend is squatting," Karl retorted.
Jade rolled her eyes skyward. "Right. Because this looks like a squat. Like a shack in the woods. And like you wouldn’t have noticed a twenty-foot building with super-sized windows before we slipped down a hole in a tree trunk."
"I…" Karl trailed off. He shook her head. "Listen, I’m only trying to make sense of this. It’s not exactly something that’s easy to believe, and I’m still not convinced that you’re not the host of some hit television show trying to con me into looking like a fool on camera."
"Mm, well, let me tell you that you don’t need a camera for that." Jade hitched a brow.
"Give her a break, Karl. She's on to something. I don't understand exactly what I'm seeing here, but I've never seen anything like it. Not hidden in some woods." Nic pointed up at the windows. "I can't make out whether or not we're underground. That slide down seemed a really long way, but there's natural light up there. Over here open doors are leading into dark tunnels."
Jade moved in Nic's direction, a sense of dread growing. She wanted to get out of this unknown building, out into daylight. Not wander further in along dark corridors.
Karl followed her in silence.
Jade soon discovered her mistake of imagining gloomy corridors. The doors were opening into blackness. They could see no more than about three feet.
"Seriously, where are we?" Karl asked.
"I'm not sure. In short, there are different beings to us, alive in different realms. We know them as the ancient Greek gods and creatures from mythology, but there are others too. Monsters, if you like. We’ve passed through a weak point in the fabric of space and slipped into this different dimension where these other entities live. Honestly, I've no idea where we are." Jade hoped she didn't sound as apprehensive as she felt.
Nic pulled his phone out of his pocket. "No signal," he said as he looked at it. "But still we get light." He swung the phone around to shine the brilliant beam into the pitch black beyond the door, and he walked through.
Jade and Karl both stepped toward the room but were more reticent about following him in. But as soon as he was through the door, the space was illuminated by wall lights.
"That's great. They must be on a sensor, although I don't see what triggered it," Nic said looking down at his ankles and then around at the wall and the door frame.
"Could be underfloor sensors picking up on your weight," said Karl looking down. "Those are nice floor tiles."
Nic nodded. "Could be. I don't see that I could've tripped any laser sensors. And the weird thing is these walls."
Nic didn't have to expand on that thought, it was obvious to them all. Although there were beautiful stone floor tiles, laid in an intricate pattern. The walls were roughly carved into the rock. It reminded Jade of an underground mine, not that she'd been in any, but from what she'd seen on TV.
"Do you think it's not finished?" She thought out loud.
"I don't know. If this is the way to the cellar or some kind of plant room, perhaps the owners didn't need to make the walls look nice," Nic replied.
"In which case, it will be a dead end. I don't think that's the way for us to go. In fact, I think we should get out of here." Karl sounded as uneasy as Jade felt.
There was a soft sound behind them.
Nic returned to the large hallway, and the lights shut off as he left the corridor.
Jade had no idea how to get back to their world, but she didn't want to confess that just yet.
She set off at a swift pace tracing around the perimeter of the hall. There were a number of similar open doorways leading into blackness. As she arrived at the next one, she stepped inside. The lights turned on revealing a corridor just like the first they'd seen.
When she retreated back into the main great hall, she heard a soft but distinct noise coming from the first corridor they’d looked in. Karl and Nic heard it too and turned around swiftly. Three birds flew out of the darkness. They were large and black. They landed on the floor and looked about before taking to the wing again and flying to the top of a large statue of the Greek god Zeus.
Jade wondered about the birds. She'd met Corax often enough to believe that the three birds were of that species, not just ravens, but creatures who could transform into a human form. But as these birds remained as birds, Jade saw no reason to share her suspicions with her human companions.
With the birds watching them, the three moved on and found several more entrances to roughly mined tunnels, each exactly the same with human sensing lighting and tiled floors. The passageways often branched in a number of directions.
"It looks like a maze. If we enter without a map, we might get lost in the labyrinth," Nic mused.
All these doors to darkness, all Jade wanted to see was a door to outside, or, better yet, a door to home.
"Hey," Karl had sunk down to his knees to try a tiny door, "this one opens, and it opens to the outdoors."
Jade beamed with relief.
She and Nic knelt down beside Karl and looked through.
She could see lush grass beyond, but not much else.
"Do you see that?" Jade scooted back to give Nic room to look. "That’s where we want to go. We’ll have to crawl."
"You’ll be okay but do you think I’ll fit through?" Karl sat on his haunches and looked over at Jade.
Jade nodded.
"Some of my friend’s big asses wouldn’t fit through even if they were flat on the floor slithering like snakes."
"Good job you don’t have a big ass then." Jade winked and giggled, and Karl laughed too. It seemed, at last. the ice between them was melting.
Karl’s hand wrapped around Jade’s wrist. "Shall I go first this time?"
With Karl touching her again, the open door wasn’t the first thing on Jade’s mind. She remembered the staggering chemistry they’d shared in bed and the way his nude body had felt against her own. They’d come so close to fucking.
So close. For just a moment Nic was forgotten.
Jade’s whole body remembered. It suddenly switched to high alert, eager for her to get back on track with the man who’d made her like no other ever had.
The maybe-not-an-asshole man.
She didn’t make a move to pull away. "Do you still not believe this is real?" Jade whispered in Karl’s ear. "Do you still hold on to this being a TV show? Look in front of you. Look at the door. We came down a hole in a tree trunk. We should be below ground, but this door opens onto grass."
"What are you—" Karl turned his head and stopped mid-sentence.
"Mmmhmm." Jade grinned triumphantly. She pulled away from him reluctantly and took her hand to guide him through the door. "After you."
The chemistry between them was back. It burned brightly, tingling in her palm and up her arm and waking the butterflies in Jade’s stomach. It made Jade hope that beneath Karl’s prickly exterior, he wasn’t all that bad.
At least nice enough to be fuckable. Jade would take that.
"This is crazy!" Karl exclaimed.
"Welcome." Jade patted his ass as he crawled through the dwarf door. "Everything and everyone’s a little crazy here."
Chapter Eight
Finding herself somewhere wholly unfamiliar when she crawled out through the small door, Jade was lost.
Soon, Nic followed her out.
By all accounts, she’d proved her point, and they could leave, but leaving wasn’t always so easy. How? Jade didn’t know the way, for starters. They wouldn't be able to climb back up through the almost
vertical tunnel that they’d plummeted down.
They were surrounded by trees, but it looked nothing like Beaumont woods.
"These are olive trees," Jade told her companions. She'd become familiar with them on trips to Sparta; they definitely didn't grow around Beaumont. They appeared to be in a grove of olive trees, but other trees were also growing in their midst.
Jade loved an adventure, and for some inexplicable reason, she’d assumed she was safe when she slipped into other dimensions, even though Lauren and Brenna had warned her there was much danger.
Every time she’d visited with Lauren in the past, the magic of it all had respected them. Doors opened, paths were clear, and there wasn’t a worry in the world. Lauren was, after all, the partner of the defenders of Olympus. Men especially chosen for the job. Men who weren't even technically men anymore, they’d been resurrected from death and immortal.
Jade, Nic, and Karl were like gatecrashers at a party.
It looked like the Auto dude wasn’t the only who needed to be fearful of the gods.
Jade felt sure that if they stayed calm and kept their wits about them, everything would turn out fine. Such an attitude to life had worked for her so far. Perhaps they’d find the Spartans or someone else who would help them.
Jade chose "forward" as the direction to go. It made just as much sense as anything else.
"You’ve got to be kidding," Karl muttered under his breath as they made their way over long grass. "This can’t be real."
Smug with I-told-you-so, Jade grinned. "It’s as real as you and me. Probably a little more real, if I’m being honest."
"And this is what you and your friend are trying to protect?" Nic asked, dumbstruck. "The passage to this… this place?"
"Her name is Lauren." Jade wove around a shorter tree with branches that blocked their passage. "And it’s not just this place that we’re trying to protect, but people back home who might slip through some other chink connecting the worlds. Those woods house the rift in dimensions that allows access to many realities. This one is just one outcome. Some are good, and some are bad. But the thing is, unless you know what you’re doing, you could get stuck somewhere or end up in danger."
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